SO, BEFORE WE GET INTO THE NITTY-GRITTY…
I want every one to know that 220 film HAS 20 frames, not 10.
I feel like it is my civic duty to inform y’all because if you couldn’t tell by the title of this post,
I tragically made that assumption.
When I reached the 10th frame, I kept firing away and cranking the advance lever thinking the film would eventually wind up. But by frame 17-
I realized something was different *face palms*
So the folks over at The Darkroom Lab saw half of my roll looking like a whole lot of this –>
tsk tsk, a shame, I know ;~;
Peep the kicks, ya boy was STUNTIN’
ANYWHO,
Let’s get to the real stuffs!
On my visit back home to South Florida, I found myself a roll of 220mm Portra 160 VC–
Expired in 2004, back when Third Grade me was rockin’ a dusty pair of light-up high-top Reeboks (I wore those things till the batteries died!)
Kodak had two variations of this film stock: one was NC (Neutral Color) which complimented skin tones really well, and VC (Vivid Color) which cranked that Soulja Boy on the saturation meter-
bringing dense colors and more contrast!
However, these two stocks were discontinued sometime in 2011 to market for Kodak’s current Portra series (which we all know and adore).
Beach umbrellas test exposures: box speed, ISO 200, & ISO 400. Notice how the pinks on the umbrella start showing a bit more on the last exposure.
Beach front apartments test exposures: box speed, ISO 200, & ISO 400
My cousins and I were driving around the island of Palm Beach and I decided to test out some exposures with this Zoomer film.
Being that it expired it 2004, you know the rule, one would want to overexpose +1 stop for every 10 years. So for this lil’ experiment, I shot a frame at box speed, ISO 200, and ISO 400; bringing this baby right into 2024.
And the results:
Sorta cool
For the frames shot at box speed, you can really see how time did not do this one justice. In both scenes, the shadow details are foggy and there is an overall sand-colored cast across the image.
In my opinion, I really like the +1 stop frame in the building scene. The exposure came out pretty decent and the colors weren’t washed out compared to the +2 exposure. Light leaks and all, I think it came out pretty cool.
“Color corrected” +2 stops at ISO 400 of beach umbrellas in Palm Beach, FL
“Color corrected” +2 stops at ISO 400 of beach front apartments in Palm Beach, FL
I can’t really be mad that the rest of that roll was random shots of the ground because I was only expecting 10 to begin with.
I got to play around with a new film stock and managed to get this impromptu shot of this seagull without metering or dropping this big ass Mamiya,
so was it really a waste?
I was able to follow everything you explained and I found it super interesting! Plus your humor in your explanations def. made it more enjoyable read.
I’m glad it was easy to digest despite the distress from the previously stated L I took :,) hahah